h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In a workshop not too long ago, Mort Castle suggested that genre categories exist so that a clerk being paid just-above-nothing an hour knew where to put the books on the shelf.

He told a story about an author who wrote a horror novel. His agent couldn't sell it for a donut; horror, the publishers said, was dead. The author took a walk in a bookstore, called his agent and said something to the effect of: "Call it a thriller. A crime thriller." The agent was able to sell the book in a week. If my memory is at all accurate, the book was "Silence of the Lambs".

The moral of the story? "The man doesn't want a white suit, he wants a blue suit? Turn on the blue light."

In (blue?) light of this idea, what kind of stories are you writing and reading -- and what genre label is applied to them?

- emc

http://www.geoffcooper.com

I agree in that genres do tend to generalise books and people make assumptions about them because of the genre... but there's really no other way to categorise them.